Gove claimed there was a "haunting question" for many heads and council education bosses: "Why aren't we doing better?"

He said some schools in deprived parts of the country, such as Hackney, in east London, and White City, in the west of the capital, were out-performing those in affluent areas like Hampshire, Oxfordshire and West Sussex.

Pupils in richer areas often come from supportive and loving homes and their teachers will have benefited from top universities, Gove said, adding: "Yet these children are not performing as well as those in some inner-city schools – why? We can't escape asking that question.

"Every time that the headteacher, or the director of children's services, or the minister reaches for excuses, such as 'we're under-resourced' or 'I'm afraid the capital this year hasn't been so good' or 'it's very difficult to fire teachers' … they're spending time justifying under-performance when they should be spending time challenging under-performance and looking for reasons to perform better."

Successful schools "do not spend their time whingeing about resources or complaining about ministers' particular priorities because they know they are masters or mistresses of their own destiny", he said. "They can make a little go a surprisingly long way."